Roosevelt, Theodore

Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) 26th president of the United States. A frail, asthmatic youth, Roosevelt, born in New York City, fought against his infirmities and became an avid sportsman. He had an abiding interest in natural history and published a scholarly paper while still in college. By 1882, this prodigious polymath had also begun work on The Naval War of 1812, still recognized as a major work of scholarship. After college, he studied law but dropped out. He entered the New York State Assembly in 1882, where, although nominally a Republican, he quickly won a reputation for independence and supported a bundle of “good government” measures. After the death of his wife in 1884, he moved to his ranch in western Dakota and considered quitting politics and becoming a rancher. Nonetheless, in 1886 he ran for mayor of New York City, coming in third; he also remarried. In 1887 he became chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, where he continued to emphasize merit as the basis for advancement. From 1895 to 1897, he served as New York City's police commissioner, tightening discipline and setting high standards for police officers. He was assistant secretary of the navy (1897–99) but resigned to organize a regiment of volunteer cavalry, called the “Rough Riders,” whom he led in a famous assault on San Juan Heights, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. In November 1898 he won election as governor of New York, on the strength of his war record and his ebullient personality. In that position he supported progressive measures such as limits on women and child labor, eliminated separate schools for white and black students, and made efforts to preserve the state's natural beauty. Roosevelt ran for vice president in the election of 1900 and became president in 1901 upon the assassination of President William McKinley. Believing that federal regulation was necessary to redress inequalities in the nation's social and economic spheres, he moved to break up the huge trusts that dominated the country's economy, beginning with the Northern Securities Company; he also used his influence, and threats of nationalization, to bring miners and owners back to the negotiating table during the 1902 coal strike and to win de facto recognition of the union. During his second term Roosevelt supported additional progressive legislation, including the Pure Food and Drug bill, the expansion of the civil service, and federal inspection of stockyards and slaughterhouses. He also continued to press for preservation of the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he supported a buildup of the navy, the open door policy in China, and U.S. hegemony in Latin America; he encouraged the revolution in Panama (1903) that allowed for the construction of the Panama Canal, and believed peace could best be maintained by a balance of power. His mediation of the Russo-Japanese War (1905) earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite Roosevelt's energy, his charisma, and his sprawling intellect, he did not command the loyalties of his fellow Republicans, who resented his domination of the party's politics, and who did not share his views on the role of the federal government. Roosevelt responded by condemning them as lackeys of the wealthy and by claiming that corporations were purchasing favors from politicians. In 1912, having been denied renomination by the Republican party, Roosevelt ran on as a third-party candidate representing the Progressive, or Bull Moose, party but came in second to Woodrow Wilson. From 1912 on, he wrote voluminously, explored Brazil, and advocated military preparedness as World War I loomed, criticizing pacifists and advocating universal conscription. He supported Charles Evans Hughes for president in 1916 because he though Hughes would better prepare the nation for the inevitability of war. He eventually supported the League of Nations, although he continued to believe that U.S. military leadership was essential to world peace.

Roosevelt was, at forty-two, the youngest man ever to win the presidency.